there wasn't much of a push to vaccinate people, and also not much incentive for people to get one- especially when the country had no COVID cases in the community and life was normal.

Supply chain logistics. US, UK & EU need 2x population doses because they're killing 100,000+ people.

NZ has one decent lockdown and 26 deaths total - and successfully keeps the plague out for 14months.... which rather reduces our govt's negotiating power when trying to source the 10million doses we need. We simply didn't have supply of sufficient vaccines until July-2021.

Don't worry, what passes for right-wing rabid press is tireless in its search for evidence of govt incompetence; so far without success.

The current outbreak and lockdown has concentrated minds and we're managing >60,000 vaccinations per day... At which rate we will run out of supply in late Sept and have to suspend operations until the October shipment arrives. Gotta loved JustInTime logistics.

Vaccination doesn't stop the spread of the delta variant, so I'm not sure how that would have helped enough to prevent an outbreak.

Vaccination likely dramatically slows the spread. Even with the most pessimistic non-peer-reviewed numbers, Delta in a vaccinated (Pfizer or Moderna) population will spread no faster than original Covid in an unvaccinated population, and the death (and presumably long-term disability) toll will be substantially reduced.

As a non-expert, IMO the most pessimistic numbers are likely to be more pessimistic than warranted.

I do not see that. Compare Iceland or Israel or Netherlands to India. It spread very quickly in either case.

It's almost a myth that Israel is highly vaccinated, and the vaccine is far more effective in Israel than first meets the eye.

A significant % of Israel's entire population is currently too young to be eligible for vaccination.

There are two commonly reported %s: percent of population and percent of eligible population. That distinction matters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#Structu...

https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-...

No it doesnt. But they tell you it does...

If your hospitals aren’t overwhelmed with the dying, an outbreak is a much more minor consequence.

Okay, sure, but doesn't that remove my personal responsibility for vaccination? If it's only about my personal disease risk, I can make whatever choice I please.